Thinking beyond dualities in public space: the unfolding of urban interiority as a set of interdisciplinary lenses

Abstract

In his reflection on the Inside the City interior educators conference (London, November, 2018), Andrew Stone acknowledged the growing confidence of interior designers in engaging with the city, which poses a natural conduit for the discipline’s inherent interdisciplinarity. Within this provocation, a central position is taken up by the concept of urban interiority. Breaking out of the confines of domestic and private interior space, urban interiority transposes the mobile notion of interiority into an urban context. This expansive understanding holds the potential to blur the boundaries between interior and urban design disciplines, and foster innovative thinking that goes beyond the fixed dualities of public-private or interior–exterior. Furthermore, this article approaches urban interiority as a spatial condition going beyond the classical understanding of interiority as the subjective feelings of our inner life. Hence, we construct a set of lenses as ways of seeing the spatial configurations of interiority in an urban setting: Time (Ephemerality-Adaptation), Movement (Bodies in Space-Accessibility), Transition (Boundary-Permeability). Using the arcades of Brussels as a test situation, the lenses framework offers a non-deterministic analyzing method by proposing different readings of the historical and analytical data collected through research on the material culture of the arcades, and spatial analysis of the sites through personal observations and cartographic layering. The knowledge gained through the implementation of these set of lenses will be a foundation for design principles which address the configuration of fundamental elements of interior public space.

Keywords:

• Urban interiority
• Public interior
• Arcades
• Brussels
• Interior design
• Urbanism
• Interdisciplinary

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1 The commotion around the design of the Stadshal concerned its considerable size, its central position on the main square and the way the structure seems to rupture the historical monumental configuration of the cityscape.

2 The Viennese architect Victor Gruen is considered the father of the shopping mall. He conceived the shopping mall as his view on the planning of suburbia. The typology would represent a new pedestrianized centrality in a society transformed by the automobile.

3 The Path in Toronto functions as an enormous underground network of pedestrian passageways, skywalks and tunnels which connects Union Station with a vast program of office buildings, shopping malls, hotels, apartments, schools ….

4 The Galleria is part of the Masterplan Xpo Kortrijk (2009) by Office Kgdvs, BGAV, and Joachim Declerck. The plan consists of the Galleria, an entrance- and congress hall, and extension of the Rambla.

5 Projet de communication entre le Marché aux Herbes et la Montagne aux Herbes Potagères à Bruxelles. De Mot, Hauman, Brugelman et Baron de Wijkersloot de Weerdestyn au collège des Bourgemestre et Echevins, 13 Décembre 1837, City Archive Brussels, TP 6208.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Research Fund of the University of Antwerp [under grant number PS-ID 29655].

Notes on contributors

Tine Poot

Tine Poot, Ph.D. candidate, has been educated in the fields of Interior Architecture and Urban planning and Spatial Design at the University of Antwerp, Faculty of Design Sciences. She takes this unique combination to its advantage in her research about the Public Interior, the design of durable, inclusive public interiors from an urban and interior perspective. Earlier research about the role of the interior architect for the design of public space and the phenomenon Guerrilla Urbanism, tactical appropriation of urban public space, shows her affinity with public space from a broad and interdisciplinary perspective. Email: [email protected]

Els De Vos

Els De Vos, engineering architect and spatial planner, is associate professor at the Faculty of Design Sciences at the University of Antwerp, where she lectures in the program of interior architecture and architecture. Her Ph.D. dissertation on the architectural, social and gender-differentiated mediation of dwelling in 1960s–70s Belgian Flanders has been published with the University Press Leuven in 2012. She has co-edited several volumes, including Theory by Design. Architectural Research Made Explicit in the Design Studio. She’s the UAntwerp coordinator of the Erasmus + project Re-Use of Modernist Buildings and a member of the editorial board of Inner Magazine (http://www.innermagazine.org/). Email: [email protected]

Maarten Van Acker

Maarten Van Acker is fascinated by cities and what shapes them. He is professor of urban design at the Faculty of Design Sciences at the University of Antwerp. His research focuses on infrastructure and urban design. Maarten is a member of the Urban Studies Institute and represents the Research Group for Urban Development. He holds a Ph.D. for his research ‘From Flux to Frame’, analyzing the impact of infrastructure design on the urbanization of Belgium since the 19th century. In New York, Maarten continued at The New School his post-doctoral research on urban (infra)structures. Email: [email protected]